Caution to the Wind
by azulfanatica
Summary: A night out with old friends sends Eric and Calleigh down a road they never expected to traverse. Will they turn back, or will they simply brave the challenges ahead?
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Rated M for strong language and sensuality. Not beta'd.

A/N2: The idea for my story, "The Idiot's Guide," actually came from this piece, which was partially completed at the time. Your responses to chapters 8 & 9 of 'Idiot's Guide' encouraged me to keep working on "Caution to the Wind." I've written two chapters of a maximum four chapter story, so if you have any feedback for me as I continue writing, I would love to hear it. I'm trying to stretch my creative muscles!

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 1

* * *

"No kidding," Aaron grimaced. "They keep closing in on the protected areas and there'll be a lot more attacks like that one. That bear was looking for food, and he found it."

Aaron Anderson sat across the large booth from his long-time friend, Eric Delko, commenting on one of Eric's recent cases. The case was now closed, and seeing as it had been plastered all over the evening news for the last few days, everyone at the table knew the grittier details about the girl who died trying to protect her little brother from a bear—a bear that was intentionally drawn to their campsite by a sick and spiteful step-father.

Next to Eric sat his…well, sat his Calleigh. Eric would swear up and down until he was blue in the face that he and Calleigh Duquesne were 'just friends.' Best friends. Aaron knew that the beautiful blonde was currently dating an MDPD homicide detective, who Delko called 'that God-awful, pretentious, slimy, douche-bag, son-of-a-bitch" the last time Aaron saw him. Not that his description of the detective made much sense; Eric was stone drunk, after all— one of the few times Aaron had seen him lose control like that.

Next to Aaron, four other men sat around the circular booth: Titus Burwell (or Big Bur, as they liked to call him), Andrew "AJ" Cavazos, Courtney "I dare you to call me a girl_ one more time_"Jacobs, and Conner "The Con Man" Kitts (also known as Kittens, but only on very rare occasions, as the moniker sometimes incited extreme violence). Together with Aaron (Double A, or Dub for short) and Eric, who everyone just called Delko, these men constituted three-quarters of the two nationally ranked relay teams that the University of Miami Swim Team boasted three years running.

Two of their number were missing, a fact which the six friends seldom discussed—not because they wanted to forget, but because they acted like the pair were still with them. Howard Scott and Lucius Mackelroy were the dynamic duo, two best friends who loved to swim and lived to love—love life, love their friends, love the small things each day afforded.

They weren't the best swimmers on the team, but the entire university, and even the community, turned out to watch Scottie and Mack swim every weekend—they poured all of themselves into the sport and into the people who supported them. Three weeks before graduation, a drunk driver ran a red light at six o'clock on a Tuesday night and t-boned their pick-up truck, killing both young men instantly.

Scottie and Mack left an indelible impression on those they left behind and changed the lives of their teammates forever. Aaron and Bur partnered up after college and used their business and management degrees to start a non-profit organization designed to support the victims of drunk driving. They now led a national movement to introduce legislation in Congress that would harshly increase the penalties for repeat offenders.

AJ married his college sweetheart less than two months after he buried his best man. He and Mack had been friends since middle school; Mack introduced AJ to Sara, but he never made it to their wedding. Sara usually came with her husband to these reunions, but she was currently at home in bed, seven months pregnant. Finally. She and AJ tried for several years to have children with no luck. In the last six years, they had adopted three children who were born with fetal alcohol syndrome. Their whole group rejoiced at the news that Sara was expecting a child of her own. She deserved everything she wanted and more; Eric thought people like AJ and Sara should be granted sainthood for taking on the responsibility of special needs children.

Courtney returned to his hometown of Houston and implemented an educational program for underprivileged kids in the Fifth Ward. As a young black man, Courtney had experienced first-hand the need to teach kids how to swim; statistically, African American men are more likely than any other group in the United States to lack the ability to swim. His program taught kids not only about swimming, but about water safety, the importance of working as a team, and the simple joy of doing something you love. After ten years in Houston's roughest neighborhood, Courtney Jacobs could proudly say that he'd rescued hundreds of kids from the streets and pointed them toward lives of success.

Then there was Conner. He wasn't called The Con Man for nothing; his ability to woo and manipulate landed the eight swimmers in just as many sweet situations as prickly ones in college. During spring break their junior year, Conner somehow acquired the key to the penthouse suite of their hotel in the Dominican Republic; that week was the most memorable of all their young lives. The next year, he talked their way into a swanky shindig being held for the university president in order to see Gordon O'Reilly, the drummer for the guys' favorite band. Apparently, Mr. President did not find their intrusion as comical as they did, and it very nearly cost them eligibility on the swim team.

These days, Conner put his antics to better use as a correspondent for ESPN. His two brothers played in the MLB and his father was a pitching coach for a team out West. Eric always laughed when he heard his crazy friend's voice announcing a Dodgers or Diamondbacks game. Everywhere he traveled, the former communications major took time to speak to little league teams and Boy Scout troupes, using Scottie and Mack's story to encourage others to make positive choices. Last year, a young teenager called Conner from the ledge of a bridge; he'd given his card to the boy, not knowing their interaction had made such an impression on him that he would call nearly a year later as he considered ending his life. Conner managed to talk the boy down from the ledge, and now he made regular trips to Cincinnati to mentor the troubled teen.

As for Eric, the tragic death of his two close friends drastically transformed the way he looked at the world around him. For four years, he'd studied to become an engineer like his father. His future was mapped out in front of him. Graduate degree, associate at a design firm, start his own mechanical engineering business. Eric went into a tailspin after he lost Mack and Scottie, and he found himself hauling tin out in the Everglades, trying to figure out who the hell he was anymore. If it weren't for the guys sitting around this table and one stubborn, red-headed lieutenant, Eric might still be out there searching for scrap metal.

Becoming a police officer was the best decision Eric had ever made. He did it in honor of his fallen teammates, but he found himself and his vocation in the process. And he found Calleigh. Calleigh, who dealt with her own demons concerning alcohol.

Calleigh was a conundrum. Seven years ago when he'd just started at MDPD, Delko showed up at their reunion with this drop-dead gorgeous, spitfire of a Southern woman on his arm. Heaven only knew how Calleigh garnered the invitation to their gathering, but she'd been at every one since that fateful night. Besides Sara, Cal was the only other woman, or other person period, that joined their get-togethers. Two or three times a year for the last seven years, without fail.

Given the group's affinity for nicknames, they were the ones who dubbed Calleigh "Bullet Girl." It stuck, much to the woman's chagrin (and secret satisfaction). After her third reunion with the guys, she'd asked why everyone had a crazy name except for Eric. "Delko" wasn't all that creative, after all—the U.S. government came up with that brilliant jewel when Eric's family emigrated from Cuba. Apparently, Delektorsky was just too difficult for customs and immigration to pronounce.

Burwell had answered for all of them in the deep, booming voice which perfectly suited his muscular African American frame:

'_Delko's just the easiest. Really, this guy's got more nicknames than all of us combined.'_

_Eric pinned Big Bur with a steely glare that threatened bodily harm if he mentioned any of them. Bur, however, was not easily intimidated. He raised a hand to count off Eric's various pseudonyms._

'_Eric the Eel, E-Man, Speedy D—'_

_AJ piped up where Bur left off: 'Ace, Altar Boy, The Cuban Cowboy, Dynamite Delko …'_

_By now Calleigh was doubled over in unrestrained laughter, and Eric looked like he would physically beat the next person to mention his college-day epithets. Leave it to Conner…_

'_Don't forget Dr. Delko, guys,' he said with a wink, earning another death glare from Eric. 'El Tiburón, Pretty Boy, Mad Dog,' he listed, undeterred._

_The group of men burst into laughter at some long-dormant inside joke. Calleigh had become a trusted secret-keeper of so many of those jokes and stories that she'd learned long ago that sometimes it was just better _not_ to know. She shared a grin with Sara across the table; the brunette beauty rolled her eyes and sat back in her chair, content to listen to these crazy boys ramble._

_Calleigh couldn't resist just a small tease. 'Dr. Delko?' she asked her friend with a smirk and a raised eyebrow. She barely contained her mirth at Eric's obvious discomfort._

_Courtney explained: 'Ah, yes. The infamous, Dr. Delko. Ladies man extraordinaire," he chuckled, leaning back and crossing his arms over his broad chest._

_Calleigh picked up on a hint of sarcasm and sent the guys a questioning glance. Conner obliged her, once more. 'And when Court says ladies man extraordinaire, he means complete social recluse,' he grinned._

_Eric rolled his eyes. 'That's just wrong, man.' Would they ever leave him alone? 'Dub, back me up here!'_

_Aaron wished he could, but Con Man was right: Eric Delko was the antithesis of the social butterfly during his years at U of M._

'_Sorry man, no can do. Cal,' he turned to the petite woman sitting close to Delko, 'Eric focused on three things at university, and three things only: baseball, swimming, and studying.'_

'_Scottie used to _beg_ Dirty D to come out with us,' Courtney interrupted. 'But he was stubborn as hell.'_

'_Which girls interpreted as dark and mysterious,' Conner complained acrimoniously, shooting Eric a dark look. 'Whenever he did go out, or swim, or play baseball, or step foot out his bloody-freaking-door,' he paused to take a breath, 'girls absolutely threw themselves at him. Totally unfair. He didn't even have to try.'_

'_And Dr. Delko?' Calleigh repeated through her suppressed amusement._

'_We were in Atlanta for a tournament, close to Halloween. Our last night there, we went to this insane party at an abandoned warehouse in the middle of downtown.' AJ grinned widely as he recalled that night. 'It turned out to be a costume party, and this one fine-looking girl was all over Delko, here.' He sent an apologetic glance to his wife, but Sara didn't mind in the least, knowing that AJ would always belong to her and her alone._

'_Calleigh,' Eric grumbled in defense, 'I couldn't escape. Don't listen to anything these idiots tell you.' Cal could no longer hold back a giggle when she heard him faintly grouch under his breath, 'Damn slutty nurse.'_

_AJ resumed his story. 'Fine, we'll at least call her Nurse Ratched,' he said and rolled his eyes. 'Either way, she refused to extricate herself from D's lap until 'Dr. Delko' kissed her boo-boos all better.' Shit-eating was hardly an accurate description for the grins Calleigh saw scattered around the table._

'_And by boo-boos, he means—' Conner never finished his last words, as 'Dr. Delko' reached around Calleigh and punched him hard in the chest._

'_Enough! Shut it, man,' he nearly growled, and although the long-time companions knew that Delko wasn't truly angry, there was a measure of seriousness in his voice that told them he wasn't joking around. That was a new development, and each man quietly mused that one stunning ballistics expert probably had a lot to do with the changes in their friend. Sara, perceptive as ever, knew that one stunning ballistics expert had _everything_ to do with it._

_By now Eric was blushing furiously. Sure, his buddies had always given him a hard time about the women who seemed inherently drawn to him, as well as his aversion to their advances. But Calleigh wasn't always there to hear the stories of his romantic misadventures, and he wished to keep it that way. The last thing he wanted was for his co-worker and friend to think he took advantage of women—because Calleigh had only ever known him as 'Eric the man who always has a date,' not the shy, focused young man he'd been in college. Cal could easily draw some misguided conclusions about Eric's opinion of women._

_He had nothing to worry about. Calleigh peered up at him with a gleam in her green eyes, a playful look on her porcelain features. She patted him teasingly on the leg, but her words were all business as she spoke just to him: 'Good thing I know you better than that, huh, Dr. Delko?' _

_Her savoir faire saved the day and eased the sudden tension around the table, along with the building anxiety in Eric's chest. Even though they'd worked together less than two years, Calleigh did know him better than that, and he never should have doubted her confidence in his character. The man grinned his flawless grin and sent Cal a silent 'thanks' before he turned back to his boisterous buddies and the new conversation circling the table._

Calleigh remembered that night like it was yesterday, but in reality, nearly six years had passed. She'd wormed her way into the group like she belonged there all along, and AJ, Aaron, Bur, Court, and Conner became just as much of an extended family to her as they were to Eric.

More than any other people in Calleigh's life, these guys witnessed how she changed and grew over the years. From time to time, Aaron would comment that Cal didn't smile as much as she used to and that she worked too hard. Bur would wrap her in a huge bear hug without provocation, exactly when she needed it the most. She found out later that Eric confided in him when her father dropped off the deep end.

AJ and Sara lived in New Orleans, which Calleigh loved. Any time she went home to Louisiana to see her brothers, she stopped by the Big Easy to spend time with the Cavazos and their precious children. Eric constantly teased Cal about how she was stealing his best friends; as time passed, AJ and Sara grew as close to Calleigh as they'd ever been with Delko. Secretly, Eric was beyond pleased at the friendship Cal had formed with the couple. Not only did it cement her a little firmly in his own life, but it provided Calleigh with a much needed emotional outlet—Sara and Calleigh shared frequent phone calls, especially when life got a little tough to handle.

Thus, Sara became one of Calleigh's most poignant observers on these occasions, casually remarking that she seemed more restless or happy than usual, or that the glow of her smile didn't exactly match the glow of her new tan. Eric wondered what she would say if she saw Calleigh on _this_ night.

Every time Sara made one of her little comments to Calleigh, the woman also snuck Eric a surreptitious glance that was always returned by him in one of three ways: with the distant and annoyed 'don't go there, Sara' glare, the silent and bashful 'I _can't_ go there, Sara' gaze, or the confident and caring 'I'm totally on top of it, Sara' look.

As for the other two men in the group, Conner took great pleasure in teasing Calleigh, and Courtney always acted the foil, swooping in with his unassuming ways to rescue her from Con Man's scrutiny. The trio enjoyed a constant, good-natured banter that highly entertained the rest of the group and inevitably left Eric feeling light-hearted.

Both Calleigh and Eric cherished the times when all the guys descended on Miami. No matter what was happening in their personal lives, the bi- or tri-annual rendezvous' were a tradition that brought the two CSIs together. Eric relished the ability to share this part of his life with someone he worked with day in and day out. Calleigh felt honored to be that person; she also loved the little escape these meetings provided her, and she loved that she got to make that escape with her best friend.

Tonight was just like every other night, except it wasn't. Calleigh worked the case of the little girl and the bear, too. Two days ago when she and Eric arrived at the scene, she quietly observed as her unshakable partner's olive skin blanched to a sickening, pale green. At first, Cal was worried that the heat was aggravating Eric's headache—the one prompted by the double shift he pulled the day before. A year after his shooting, and Delko still experienced side-effects from his recovery and the bullet lodged in his brain.

Soon, however, Calleigh realized that Eric was fine. The sight of the little girl had simply pushed him over the edge. She watched as he retreated to the Hummer without a word, climbed in and slammed the door behind him. Three minutes later, after emptying his stomach into a spare evidence bag and taking several deep breaths, Eric returned to Calleigh's side.

He ignored the concerned look in her piercing green eyes, but he gratefully accepted the soft hand which came up to caress the small of his back and leaned into her touch. Neither spoke to the other as they surveyed the scene, quickly agreeing with the first responding officer that this was no accident. Someone had intentionally abandoned the small children in harm's way.

Behind them and slightly to the right, a cough penetrated the thick Miami air that caused the two CSIs to turn and survey the newcomer: Detective Jake Berkeley, Delko's dramatic mental arch-nemesis and Calleigh's boyfriend of four months. Eric suppressed a satisfied smirk at Berkeley's poorly-concealed animosity when Calleigh greeted her boyfriend with a warm smile but did not remove her hand from her best friend's back. In Calleigh's mind, it was just natural to want to comfort Eric, although if she was painfully honest with herself she would admit that the desire to comfort him was oftentimes a mask for… well, just plain desire.

So tonight, as Calleigh rushed into the bar fifteen minutes late and plopped unceremoniously onto the bench next to her best friend, she didn't back away at the realization that she'd plopped _extremely close_ to Eric. In fact, she nearly sat on top of him, and they'd shared a hearty laugh at her clumsy arrival. Eric's left arm had been along the back of the booth, and now it rested casually behind Calleigh. With his free hand, he teasingly pushed Calleigh off of him, but only a little. Instead of resisting their closeness as she got settled—like Eric expected and like she _should_ have—Calleigh simply tossed him a care-free smile and apologized for being late.

The blonde proceeded to engage Big Bur in conversation on Eric's other side, ignoring the fact that two familiar chocolate eyes were studying her intensely. More than anyone else in this close-knit group (besides Eric, of course), Titus Burwell had become a dear friend to Calleigh. Throughout their time at U of M, Eric and Bur shared a special bond, much like Scottie and Mack. Unlike their rowdy compadres, however, people gravitated toward Delko and Burwell not because of their outrageous personalities, but because of the quiet strength and calm they exuded wherever they went.

For four years of college and two years afterward, the toned Cuban and the towering African American lived, worked, played, studied, and swam together. The 'odd couple,' as the team jokingly referred to the pair, formed the heart and soul of that swim club. Year after year, they shared top honors for leadership from the university, and for skill across the state and southern conference. From the outside, Eric and Bur were the last two men people expected to command the group, but that was the essence of their influence, both as upstanding young men and tenacious athletes.

Just as Calleigh had connected with Eric seven years ago, she and Titus were instant friends. In fact, Calleigh was the only person on the face of the planet, other than his mama, that Big Bur allowed to call him by his first name. His Christian name, as mama liked to call it.

"Hey, Bur," Calleigh said softly and happily as she situated herself in the booth. The blonde leaned across Eric to kiss the man on the cheek. He'd lost some of the leanness he maintained in college as a swimmer, but the extra muscle weight suited him well. Calleigh always thought of Titus as a friendly giant, prone to bone-crushing hugs and reassuring touches, but just as quick to utilize his brawn to intimidate when necessary.

Big Titus Burwell's physique was the farthest thing from Eric's mind at the moment, as his entire body hummed from contact with a much smaller, curvier frame. Calleigh could pretend like she was oblivious, but Eric heard the barely-there hitch in her breath and knew she was just as aware of their proximity as he was. To his unending surprise, the woman only settled more closely to him when she returned from greeting Bur.

They sat like that, thighs touching length for length and Eric's arm behind Calleigh's shoulders, for three hours as the group of friends caught up with each other and laughed the night away. Occasionally, Eric would bring his hand down and touch Calleigh's shoulder to get her attention, or when he laughed at a joke, or just because he wanted to and she was letting him. Neither knew where this sudden, silently desperate openness had come from, but neither was willing to push it away (like they both knew they should, and fast).

The uncharacteristic closeness did not go unnoticed by AJ, Dub, Conner, Courtney, and Bur. They shared curious glances between them, but wisely said nothing to Eric or Calleigh. The relationship between the two CSIs had long baffled all of them, and they settled into complacent, sometimes concerned, observation. Their concern stemmed from the fact that Eric and Calleigh obviously loved each other deeply, but played an unending game of cat-and-mouse that invariably left one of them licking their proverbial wounds.

Tonight, Bur watched as the pair unconsciously drew closer, seemingly unaware of the electricity that radiated from their general area of the table. At one point, Calleigh rested her hand on Delko's knee, only to leave it there for at least ten minutes until she reached to take a sip of her water. Every now and then, the touches from Eric's fingers on the petite blonde's shoulder lingered, and he drew small circles for a minute before returning his hand to the back of the booth. And just now, Eric had leant in close to ask Calleigh a question over the ever-increasing music, but this time when he tilted his head toward Calleigh's ear, he dropped his whole arm to her shoulder and kept it there.

Calleigh didn't miss a beat in her conversation with Courtney across the table. If anything, she looked like she just wanted to snuggle further into Eric's side. The only indications that anything was amiss were the almost imperceptible looks of strain on the friends' faces. They might have looked every bit the happy couple, but an underlying tension still showed in their tentative touches.

Titus frowned. The rest of the guys may not say anything about the pair's strange behavior, but they weren't Big Titus Burwell.

Mustering something that resembled a smile, Big Bur turned to his old friend and jabbed him with a sturdy elbow. "D—come with me to the bar; I need help carrying back the last round."

Seeing as Bur never needed help carrying all of their drinks (thanks to a genius invention called a _tray_), Delko realized that the man obviously wanted to talk to him alone. About what, God only knew. Given the fake smile plastered to his face and the tightness around his eyes, Eric could tell it wasn't good.

Calleigh, consumed in conversation with the men on the other side of the round booth, missed the exchange between Eric and Titus but complied as they indicated their need to get up from the bench. Reluctantly, she relinquished the contact with her best friend which had not ceased since she arrived, almost four hours ago. Warning bells sounded in her head at the sudden sense of loss she felt as Eric walked away, not just because she missed his touch, but also because she knew she should definitely not feel that way.

Warily, the woman watched as her two friends approached the bar. She quickly became aware that the last thing on Titus' mind was buying the group's last round of beers. As soon as they came to a stop in front of the bar, the tall black man rounded on the shorter Cuban man. Although she couldn't hear what Bur was saying to Eric, Calleigh could tell by his wild gestures that he was angry. She forced herself to turn back to AJ, Court, Dub, and Conner, only to find them just as enthralled with the argument by the bar.

Slowly, each of them looked away and back at Calleigh. They were as close as six guys could be, but whatever was going down across that pub was none of their damned business, and they knew it. Only Big Bur could talk to Delko like that, and he reserved his tirades for extreme circumstances. Peering hesitantly at Calleigh one by one, they all knew exactly what, or _who_, was the subject of Bur's angry rant. Calleigh stared back at them stubbornly, refusing to give way under the combined weight of their gazes.

Unless something had drastically changed in the last few weeks—and the men knew that nothing had, because Delko would have been shouting from the rooftops—Calleigh Duquesne was a taken woman. And as much as all of them wished to see Eric and Calleigh get their heads out of their asses, they knew it shouldn't happen like this. They were better than that.

Silence descended on the table as no one could think of something to say that could possibly lift the ominous mood that suddenly engulfed them. Across the bar, Titus wasted no time before he laid into his best friend.

"What the _hell _are you doing, Delko?" he growled as soon as they stopped at the counter.

Defiance hardened Eric's features. "Back off, Bur." The menacing tone of his voice told Titus that Eric knew exactly what his friend was talking about, and that he was treading dangerous waters. So be it. If Eric was going to act like an idiot, Bur would treat him like one.

"No. You're the one that needs to _back off_, D."

"I am not having this conversation," Eric snarled, spinning on his heel to head to the table. Bur grabbed the man's arm and jerked him roughly back toward the bar, warranting a vicious glare from Delko that actually made him rethink his decision for a fraction of a second.

"Yes, you are," Burwell said, daring Eric to argue with him this time. "You are playing with fire, man. And you _will_ get burned. Stop and use your head for a minute!" he implored his friend.

Eric yanked his arm from the man's firm grasp and clenched his jaw. "This is none of your business, Bur. Back. Off."

"The hell it's not my business! What kind of man would you be if you slept with Calleigh? What kind of friend would _I_ be if I _let_ you bethat man, Delko?"

Something had snapped in him; Eric was sick of everyone and everything screaming 'NO!' at him all the time. Sometime in the past few hours he'd learnt to tune it all out, and he felt free for the first time in years. No one would take that away from him. Not tonight.

"You don't have a fucking clue what you're talking about," Eric seethed, stepping into Bur's personal space and practically spitting the words in his face.

"No? Because I am pretty damn sure that you and Calleigh have crossed a major line here. You need to fix this. Now."

"Fix it? Fix it!" Eric threw his hands in the air and paced in front of his friend, one step then two. "This isn't something you can just _fix_, Titus!" If Eric weren't in the middle of a crowded bar and furious at the gall of the man standing before him, he felt he might just burst into tears.

"You can choose to stop, Eric," Bur tried desperately to break through to his friend. He grabbed Eric by the shoulders and gave him a gentle shake. "Man, we all know how you feel about her. But you cannot do this. You need to do this the right way, D."

The right way? The right way ceased to become an option sometime around Tim Speedle's death, Eric thought grimly, when suddenly 'Eric and Calleigh' became 'Complicated mess of a shit-hole." The right way to do things never involved reckless sex with strange women, or Marisol dying. It didn't include him taking a bullet to the brain, and Calleigh running into the arms of Jake-fucking-Berkeley. The right way? There was no right way.

"Go to hell," Eric said softly, eyes boring into Bur's with hatred.

That quiet condemnation finally shook Titus' resolve. He had _never_ seen Eric Delko like this, and it scared the shit out of him. He studied his friend's face in fear, and what he found there only served to further terrify and disappoint him.

The huge, dark hands clutching Eric's arms dropped limply to their owner's side. "What happened to you, Eric?" he asked, pain evident in his voice. Titus Burwell had just lost his best friend.

"Life, Bur. Life happened," the broken man replied roughly. "And I don't need you to tell me how to live mine." With one last glare, Delko walked away, leaving Big Bur in his wake shaken and confused.

Calleigh and the guys had watched the entire confrontation with bated breath. They didn't try to hide their curiosity as Eric stalked back to the table. The expression on his face genuinely frightened Calleigh, and she shivered as his steely eyes made contact with hers. She couldn't look away if she wanted to.

"We're leaving," Eric growled, grabbing Calleigh's jacket and purse from the coat rack behind the booth and offering her a hand. The firearms expert and kick-ass police officer knew better than to argue right now. She simply grabbed Eric's hand and allowed him to pull her to her feet, until she teetered dangerously close to him.

As Calleigh wobbled, Eric shot out an arm to steady her, and the world exploded. He felt her hot breath glance across his cheek and her delicate body pressed intimately against his side. The man was already on edge, and this woman just sent him over. Calleigh's lips parted in awe as she watched Eric's eyes turn jet black, and she subconsciously drew nearer to him. For a split second, everything around them disappeared, only to return in sharp focus with the screeching sound of the microphone on the stage nearby.

Neither of them said goodbye to the four stricken men sitting in the booth behind them, or to the burly black man eyeing them sadly from the bar. Calleigh knew she should feel guilty. Guilty for causing the rift between Titus and Eric, guilty for abandoning all sense of right and wrong, guilty for loving and wanting this man in a way no best friend should.

She _should_ feel guilty. But she didn't. Instead, she gripped Eric's hand that much tighter, intertwined their fingers, and followed him blindly out the door and into the parking lot. Neither Eric nor Calleigh spoke, but right as they reached Eric's car, Cal tugged his body back toward hers instead of releasing him to walk around to the driver's side.

Slowly bringing Eric to a stop in front of her, she caressed her free hand up from his waist and over his chest, fingers snaking until they found a home behind his neck. With their intertwined fingers, Calleigh pulled him as close as possible before she tilted her face upward and caught his full lips with hers.

This was no gentle kiss. Her teeth grazed along Eric's bottom lip, a little nip eliciting a visceral groan from the back of his throat. Lips slid sensually across lips, and when Eric ran his tongue along the place where their flesh connected, Calleigh actually whimpered, and granted him immediate access to the steamy depths of her mouth. Her hand grappled hopelessly at the back of his neck, trying desperately to draw him closer. Eric's free hand, meanwhile, had crept under the back of Calleigh's silk blouse, and he was busy running enterprising fingers over the sensitized skin of her back and waist.

When his fingers barely (and none-so-shyly) slipped inside the top hem of Calleigh's slacks along her lower back, the woman compulsorily bucked her hips against Eric's. Her lips tore violently from his as she attempted to breathe, which was extremely hard at the moment, for Eric's hand had slid from beneath her clothes to grasp the curve of her rear, crashing her lower body hard into his.

They both groaned at the contact. Eric, because he could feel Calleigh's heat through every layer of clothing which separated them. Calleigh, because she felt something distinctly…Eric…pressing against her abdomen. _She_ had done that to him. That heady knowledge pulled a cord tight in her stomach, and Calleigh fought to stay lucid as Eric pulled her against him.

"Car, now," she managed to utter, although her words came out in a voice she didn't recognize as her own, raspy with love and lust. She frantically shoved him away. Eric's confusion at the rude interruption of his pleasure quickly abated when he saw the consuming look on Calleigh's face. "Get in the car, Eric," she commanded. He obeyed.

It was all they could do to keep their hands off of each other in the car on the way to Eric's condo. At one point, when they were stopped at a red light, Calleigh unbuckled her seatbelt and stretched over to the driver's side and to Eric. She fused their lips together and kissed him so deeply that only the sound of a car honking behind them reminded Eric of where they were and what they were doing. His voice somehow found purchase as his foot hit the gas pedal, ringing out edgy and low in the silence of the car. "Just wait, baby."

Calleigh sat in the passenger seat, completely overwhelmed by her own audaciousness and the impact Eric's words had on her. His gravelly tone, the way he almost moaned the word 'baby,' now had Calleigh squirming. She'd never wanted a man this much in her life, and she would have him if it was the last thing she did on this green earth.

She didn't have to wait long, though. With inhuman strength, Eric managed to steer them to his condo without pulling the car over and ravishing Calleigh by the side of the road. While their heated collision was already less than romantic and far from ideal, he knew that Cal deserved better than a solid fucking in the backseat of his car. Although, by the look in her eye during the ride home, Eric wasn't entirely sure that Calleigh would have objected.

With at least some decorum, they managed to get out of the car and up to his condo before they launched at each other again. Eric had barely shut the door behind them when Calleigh's soft curves melded into his hard planes. He longed for the moment when he couldn't tell where he ended and she began, and he seriously doubted his ability to draw this out for very long.

The usually demure Southern belle had transformed into a sex-driven firecracker, though, and Eric soon discovered the complete futility of foreplay right now. Calleigh's lips crashed onto his, and tongues resumed their duel. In the back of his mind, the man registered two hands yanking the tail of his shirt from the waist of his dress pants. In the next second, Eric was free of the offending article, _and_ his undershirt, and Calleigh had set to work on his belt buckle.

"Damn it, Eric! Help me," she uttered in frustration when the belt caught. His large, gentle palms covered her frenzied fingers, and in that moment both of them slowed their pace. Cal locked her sea-green orbs with his fathomless brown ones, and she noted with irony that the term 'windows into the soul' could never begin to describe the world he'd just revealed to her with his eyes.

Calleigh saw lust and desire and need and passion. She saw awe and edge and desperation. But she also saw unending love, compassion, unfailing devotion, and complete surrender. The intensity of his gaze left the woman trembling, and Eric had to catch her as her knees buckled slightly underneath her.

Unbeknownst to Calleigh, Eric saw that same world reflected in _her_ mesmerizing eyes. Slowly, he lowered his head to hers and captured her lips in the most shattering kiss Calleigh had ever experienced—powerful in its simplicity, filled with the love they could not confess, and sweetly tainted with the knowledge that they only had tonight.

That thought forced an unbidden sob into Calleigh's throat, and although she was able to suppress it, the blonde beauty had to tear her lips from Eric's to do so. Undaunted, Eric let Calleigh catch her breath for a brief moment before he latched onto her lips once more, forcefully thrusting his tongue into her mouth as if to claim her as his. His unbelievably tender palms still covered Calleigh's atop his belt, and he guided her fingers to undo the buckle and lower the zipper of his pants. As she liberated Eric from the irritating slacks, his fingers wandered to her blouse. He momentarily stole Calleigh's hands so he could rid her of the silken shirt.

A second later, she stood before him completely exposed. If Eric had known that this woman had sat by his side for hours wearing nothing but that forest green, silk blouse, he never would have survived the night. He stood stock-still, drinking in the sight of a half-naked Calleigh, chest heaving, cheeks flushed, and red lips swollen.

Of its own accord, his left hand darted out to claim her hip and draw her in, right hand snaking to her waist. Calleigh's eyes fell closed at the sensation of Eric's hand caressing her waist, her ribcage, thumb brushing the underside of her breast. It was almost more than she could stand, the excruciating transition to this slow, luxurious pace.

With a devastating kiss (and the realization that at some point they'd kicked off the remainder of their restrictive clothing) Eric started moving them toward his bedroom. He proved to be his own worst enemy when his fingers hit a sensitive spot and Calleigh let out a soft growl.

She was normally a quiet lover, but something told her that making love to Eric Delko would forever alter the way she viewed sex, even if she only had this one night with him. The pain in her chest contracted her beating heart, not for the first time that evening. Both of them knew they couldn't cross this line. What line? Oh yeah, the one they shot to hell five hours ago. By morning, Eric and Calleigh would have to face the reality of their lives: friendship, work, Berkeley—everything.

But for now… for now Calleigh would revel in the freedom to cry out at Eric's gentle attack on her body. For now, Eric would drown in the sight and sound and smell of his best friend, completely aroused in his strong arms. Consequences be damned.

They never made it to the bedroom, instead falling against the far wall of the living room before backtracking to the couch. Blindly, Eric reached down and pulled the cushions from the sofa, tossing them to the floor along with all the throw pillows. His mouth never left Calleigh's as he found her favorite blanket and threw it haphazardly over their make-shift bed on the floor. With one knee, he shoved the coffee table roughly across the room to make space for them.

Their frantic pace had resumed, but this time it was less desperate and more deliberate. Nothing could prevent the impending collision of their bodies, but both Calleigh and Eric now felt safe in the knowledge that they would spend the entire night worshiping each other. Right now, the only thing on their minds was finally knowing what it felt like to move as one, to go over the edge as one.

As gingerly as possible, Eric lowered Calleigh to the cushions on the floor. He hovered over the woman in his arms, and when he looked down at her, his entire world shook. She was perfect, in every way, from the slight asymmetry of her breasts, to the freckle that adorned the hollow of her left hip. He didn't know how he could ever live without seeing her like this after tonight.

Quickly dispelling that depressing thought, Eric lowered his head, first capturing Calleigh's raw lips in a searing kiss, then trailing steamy, opened-mouth kisses down her body. He paused every time her breath hitched, every time goosebumps rose on her porcelain skin. He memorized every last detail of her curves, the way she responded to him, how she sounded when his hands caressed her _just_ so. Calleigh traded off Eric's explorations with her own, and when they couldn't stand it any longer, they finally came crashing together.

Calleigh gasped and Eric's eyes darted to hers in concern. "Are you okay?" he asked so gently that tears sprang to her eyes. She blinked them back quickly, replacing them with a mischievous grin.

"More than okay," she teased.

Eric had to be sure. "I don't want to hurt you, Calleigh."

"You won't, I promise," she replied softly. "I want you, Eric."

Her confession swelled Eric's heart, at least until a sickening awareness struck him like lightning, forcing a groan and a frustrated, 'shit' from his lips.

A wave of fear coursed through Calleigh at his outburst. Eric saw the hurt in her eyes and immediately regretted his little slip of the tongue. "Baby, no. That's not what I meant," he whispered sincerely, brushing feather-light kisses across her cheek and the corner of her mouth. He wasn't quite sure how to phrase his next sentence. "Cal—I'm sorry. I completely forgot about protection."

Calleigh's head dropped to the cushion beneath her and she exhaled deeply. How could he be thinking about that right now? Or thinking at all, for that matter?

Through her haze, Calleigh made sure to keep her eyes locked on Eric's, so he knew exactly how much she wanted this, how much she wanted him. "Eric, it doesn't matter. It's safe."

That was all he needed to hear; he crashed his mouth to hers, and the rest of the night was lost to their cries.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

* * *

Not even the sun streaming in through Eric's bedroom window could stir the exhausted couple wrapped in the plush covers of his bed. Calleigh slept soundly for the first time in months, resolutely snuggled into Eric's comforting embrace. His naked body engulfed her— his broad chest melding into the soft curve of her back, strong arms holding her to him, long legs tangled with her daintier ones. Even their fingers had entwined in the sub-consciousness of sleep.

A harsh beeping sound finally drew Calleigh away from the perfection of her dream world. When she groggily opened her eyes, Cal realized that her dream world surrounded her still, with the grand exception of the sense of impending destruction hovering about (though not between) them. The perfection could not last. The dream would, and must, end.

She shifted carefully in Eric's arms to lay on her other side and face him, gently winding an arm around his waist, re-tangling their legs, and burying her nose against his chest. Despite the sadness in her heart, and knowing she was only making this harder for herself, Calleigh held on just a little bit longer, hugged Eric a little closer.

The offending beep intruded their slumber again. Eric had only been pretending to sleep for the last ten minutes, watching Calleigh through heavily-lidded eyes, treasuring her closeness and the intimacy she so obviously wanted to prolong. Wanted, but couldn't. Eric cursed the cell phone on his nightstand for cutting short his dwindling time with the woman in his arms.

After the third consecutive ring of his phone, Eric sighed and peeled one arm from his best friend (who looked breathtaking in the morning light, he observed). Before his hand left her body entirely, Eric carefully brushed the hair out of Cal's face and kissed her sweetly on the corner of her eye, then along the line where her lashes met her cheek. She sighed in contentment and burrowed her face into the soft flesh of Eric's neck as he fumbled behind him for the blasted phone.

Part of the man longed to think he would ignore a call-out to stay here with Calleigh. But the reasonable part of his brain reminded him that he couldn't knowingly disregard his responsibilities, no matter how much he wanted to.

The fog of sleep lingering over Eric vanished abruptly as he checked the caller ID. His entire body froze. Calleigh was irritated that the phone was still ringing and cracked one eye to see why the hell Eric hadn't shut it off. The horror-struck look on her lover's face caused alarm to shoot up the blonde's spine.

"Eric?" she asked worriedly, scooting up into a reclining position atop his pillow so they rested face-to-face. She saw fear and concern and a lot of guilt flood the chocolate brown eyes which sought out her green ones.

Speechless, Eric showed Calleigh the caller ID. Her stomach dropped and she sighed angrily, upset that they had to face this so soon. It wasn't fair. This wasn't _fair_. One night with him could never be enough for her, but it was all she could ever have. Yeah, Calleigh was angry.

She closed her eyes and leaned her forehead heavily against Eric's temple. He could feel the resignation in his best friend's body as reality set in, although he couldn't quite isolate the emotion in Calleigh's voice as she whispered, "Just answer it, Eric," against his cheek. She pulled back a fraction and bent her elbow up on his pillow to tilt her head into the palm of her hand.

Watching Calleigh's every move, now _Eric_ became angry, and for all the same reasons. Even though the tanned CSI had no right to be mad at the man who waited impatiently for him to answer the phone, he was. If anything, Eric was the one in debt here, for he had crossed a serious boundary, whether the other man knew it or not.

Eric sighed and curled his right arm-pinned between warm, feminine flesh and his mattress-more firmly around Calleigh, who welcomed his embrace and strengthened her own hold around him. She dropped her head from her hand and laid it softly on her upper arm, bringing her face closer to Eric's on the pillow and using her liberated fingers to caress his neck and the back of his shaven head in quiet support.

On the last ring, Eric finally flipped open the phone. "Delko," he answered, trying to sound like he was awake.

"Delko, where the hell have you been? I've been trying to call you," came the frustrated voice of a very on-edge Jake Berkeley.

Eric bit back a nasty retort and sent Calleigh a pleading glance. Did he really have to do this? She simply leaned down and placed a kiss on his brow, mouthing a sad 'It's okay' against the skin there.

Try to play this off, Eric thought with a groan. All he could think about, though, was Big Bur in his face, yelling that this was a line he could not cross. Too late now, not that the man regretted a single moment of the last…had it really only been fifteen hours since Calleigh fell into that booth in the bar? Not the time to think about that…

"Yeah, sorry Berkeley. I'm driving," he said, shaking his head at the lie. Calleigh ran an empathetic hand down Eric's chest, knowing how much he hated to lie to _anyone_, how lies had destroyed him in the past. Now, he was lying for _her. _She wanted to tell him that this wasn't his fault, that they were in this together. But she had to settle for a comforting touch.

Her touch gave Eric the courage he needed, though. Simple as Cal's gesture was, it reminded him that she was still there, and that whatever consequences and whatever pain lay in the future, he wouldn't be the only one facing them. When they returned to life as normal, stealing glances across the lab and ignoring sad sighs in the Hummer on the way to a crime scene—then, Eric knew, he wouldn't be the only one trying to mend the gaping hole in his heart.

On the other end of the phone, Berkeley mumbled something indistinct, clearly in frustration. "Listen, I can't get a hold of Calleigh and she's not at her house. Do you know where she is?" He obviously detested having to stoop to this level to find his girlfriend, and Eric wisely chose to play nice.

Calleigh had flippantly announced that she was going out with some old friends yesterday at the end of their shifts, much to Jake's surprise… until he remembered she'd told him about it a week before…

'_Cal, you ready to go?' the detective asked as he spied the blonde from in front of the elevators of the Crime Lab. She was rushing down the hall, purse in hand and attempting to pull her long hair out of the jacket she'd just donned. Jake grinned as he realized how excited Calleigh seemed to be to leave work. He was taking her out on a friend's boat in the morning, and his skin crawled with desire as he pictured the weekend in front of them._

_The look of confusion on Calleigh's face should have been his first clue, but he was too preoccupied with his plans for the weekend to notice. He would finally have Calleigh all to himself. They'd been dating for four months, and much to the man's dismay, their physical relationship had gotten off to a slow start. _

Actually, 'slow start' was an understatement, Jake had thought. He'd planned to sweep Calleigh off her feet that day he kissed her in the lab. Drag her to a dinner which they'd mutually agree to end early in favor of more delicious activities between the sheets. Berkeley remembered their energetic exchanges as young and naïve cadets at the police academy, and he itched to feel her again after all these years.

Calleigh, it seemed, had other plans. As soon as they got in the elevator, she kept her distance from the detective's eager hands. Same MO in the car and at the restaurant during dinner. Finally, he asked Calleigh why she was avoiding his touch, and for the first time Berkeley realized that this was not the same woman with whom he once shared a young, playful love. She had grown up a lot since then, become a nationally recognized expert in her field, witnessed a lifetime's worth of tragedies. So when Cal informed him that she wanted to take this slow, Jake conceded. After all, he'd been through his fair share as an undercover cop. He could grant her some space.

At the time, Jake thought she just meant that she wouldn't be going home with him that night. But as time progressed and Calleigh still remained cagey, Jake admitted to her that his patience was wearing thin. He didn't exactly pressure her into sleeping with him, but he did let her know that he was ready whenever she was.

Calleigh almost laughed when she perceived Jake's apparent pride that he'd controlled himself for two-and-a-half weeks before he said anything else. She supposed, for him, that was a long time to wait for sex with a woman he was dating. Honestly, the CSI was just trying to protect herself. Like she'd told Eric, she wasn't even sure how she felt about Jake yet.

Eric. Only late at night, alone in the safety of her dark bedroom, would Calleigh even dare to admit that he was the reason she wanted to take things slow with Jake. For six weeks after she started dating her old flame, Calleigh battled with herself over the decision. At work, she and her best friend barely spoke to each other, for reasons neither of them would ever concede. Those reasons shouldn't be there.

But they were. They were there, and they sat like a giant pink elephant in any room the pair of officers entered. Any time Jake entered that same room, the elephant roared and trumpeted, although only Calleigh and Eric were aware of its presence. They were aware, but they refused to recognize.

Jake was edgy on their dates and Eric ignored her at the office. She couldn't give half of herself to both of them forever. So six weeks after she 'made her decision,' Calleigh finally surrendered and really made up her mind. That night, when Jake inevitably made his advances while they sat watching a movie on her couch, Calleigh didn't stop him.

Over two months had passed since their first physical reunion, and Jake smothered a grin at how he had conquered the stubborn beauty. Every time she resisted him, he caressed and cajoled her with sweet nothings until she relinquished. None the wiser, the man attributed her surrender to the history and attraction between them.

Calleigh wouldn't deny that she was attracted to Jake Berkeley. They had always had chemistry. Only, in the years since they parted ways, Calleigh had discovered that chemistry wasn't enough. She'd hoped it would be different this time, and that was part of the reason she initially put limits on their sexual relationship. She needed to see that he could care for her. Even before she caved to Jake's demands, she'd realized that nothing about him had really changed. She caved nonetheless, because she knew she couldn't have the one man she truly wanted.

Shame threatened to overwhelm her constantly. Every time Jake touched her, Calleigh felt a twinge of guilt for her own desperation, her need for someone to warm her bed. She'd inevitably throw herself into their relationship even more in an attempt to atone for her sins, but mostly because she could forget the ache in her chest when she let go of her senses and just let Jake have his way. Sometimes she really did find release with him, but most of the time Calleigh found herself playing a part to assuage the man's ego.

The act and the shame wore on her. Whenever she looked at Eric (who was now talking to her again), Calleigh saw in his eye's that he knew it was all a cheap façade, he knew that she was tired. Jake was oblivious to it all, just like he was as she walked toward him in the hallway yesterday afternoon…

_The firearms expert came to a stop in front of her detective boyfriend, confusion written clearly on her face. 'Jake, I told you I had plans tonight,' Calleigh said lightly, trying to jog his memory. 'Remember…I've been talking about it all week?'_

_Jake remembered now, and a sour look crossed his face. No wonder he didn't remember, he'd been trying to shut it out. 'I still don't get why you have to go,' he grumbled._

_Calleigh's eyes flashed angrily and she pulled him down a side hallway for some privacy. 'We've talked about this Jake. I'm going because I want to go. You're being irrational.'_

'_How am I being irrational? I'd be fine if you'd just let me go with you!'_

'_I told you, babe, it's…too private. It wouldn't be appropriate for me to bring you.' Calleigh couldn't find the right words to describe her reunion with the guys tonight, but those were definitely not the right ones. She realized it with a cringe as soon as they left her lips._

_Berkeley's eyes flared. 'Too private?' he seethed. 'Too private for me, your boyfriend, but perfectly fine for Eric-fucking-Delko, best friend of the century?' His lips curled in sarcasm as he uttered the words. _

_Even though he saw the angry blush forming on Calleigh's cheeks, Jake continued. 'Inappropriate is you gallivanting off to spend the night with a bunch of guys you never went to college with. You see them, what, once or twice a year? They're _his_ friends, Calleigh. His. So how is it that you belong there and I don't?'_

_He ended his little tirade on a huff and stood staring furiously at his girlfriend. Calleigh, for her part, neither needed nor wanted to deal with his shit at the moment._

_Cal could never explain to Jake the importance of her friendship with Dub, Courtney, Conner, AJ and Bur. She didn't understand it herself. She'd stopped trying to figure out how she fell in so easily with the rag-tag bunch a long time ago, and she resented the fact that this man was questioning one of the only things still right in her life._

'_Are you done?' __she asked icily, watching as Jake faltered under her glare.__ 'Because if you are, I need to go. I'm late.'_

_Without another word, Calleigh turned on her heel and stalked smartly to the elevator. Before Jake could stop her, she slipped between the doors of the lift and disappeared._

When she failed to show up at the marina the next morning, Berkeley at first assumed his girlfriend was just running late. More time passed and he began to think that maybe Calleigh was madder than he originally thought after yesterday's argument, and that this was his punishment. Jake tried her phone, but no one answered. Frustrated, he'd climbed in his car and raced to Calleigh's house. If they left in the next hour, their weekend wouldn't be entirely ruined.

But Calleigh wasn't home. Where the hell could she be? Sitting in front of her well-manicured house, Berkeley dialed her number again. No answer. He called her four more times before he slammed the cell closed. His frustration had turned to anger, painted slightly by worry. That tiny feeling of concern was what compelled Jake to call Eric Delko, a man he might have actually been friends with under any other circumstances. Berkeley could admit, begrudgingly, that Delko was a pretty cool guy, if only the man wasn't in love with his girlfriend. If only his girlfriend wasn't in love with Delko…

Calleigh tried to hide it, but Jake knew. How many times could he have sworn he heard Eric's name in the back of Calleigh's throat as he tortured her body in the middle of the night? She rarely said much when they had sex; whenever she did moan or utter a string of words, they were always in the most heated moments of their union. Jake would forever deny that he knew Calleigh never looked at him when she said those words. The distance in her eyes told him exactly where—or, more accurately, _who_— her mind and desire were with.

He placated himself with the knowledge that Cal chose _him _and not the Cuban Neanderthal. Yet, here Berkeley stood in front of Calleigh's house, swallowing his pride and calling the asshole because he had misplaced her.

Jake personally hated trying to dig in his pocket while he drove, fighting the seatbelt to answer his cell, so when Delko explained why he hadn't answered, he didn't think twice about it. He also didn't think about how silent he'd been on his end of the line, until Delko's voice sounded through the earpiece again.

"We got a new case?"

"Um, no," Jake responded. "Calleigh and I had plans this morning but she never showed."

"Oh," Eric said, thinking desperately of a way to keep Berkeley from creating a situation in search of his girlfriend. "You know, she might still be over at Bur's place. She, uh, had a bit to drink and he convinced her to crash on his couch."

Jake silently thanked the stars that Delko wasn't the one who had taken Calleigh home. He still didn't like the fact that she was in another man's home and apparently ignoring him, but at least she was with a guy like Burwell. The detective had met the burly black man about a month ago when he picked Cal up at MDPD for a lunch date. Nothing to fear on that front; unlike some others Jake knew, Calleigh and Bur really _were_ just friends.

"Okay," he said. "Do you have his number? Actually," Jake searched around him for a pen, "I don't have anything to write with." He sounded like a damn idiot.

"Forget it, Berkeley. I'm almost to Bur's house anyway. Give me five minutes." He wasn't sure where Calleigh's cell phone was after their rampage into his condo. This was insane, the lengths to which Eric was going to cover up his night of indiscretions. Night of _incredible_ indiscretions with his best friend and the love of his life, he thought with only a small pang in his gut.

"Alright," Jake said and hung up.

"Yeah, sure, you're welcome," Eric muttered as he closed his cell and tossed it back to his night stand with a loud clatter.

The silence that descended on the couple was surprisingly un-awkward. It wasn't sad, or angst-ridden, or even desperate. Just…quiet, and maybe a little thoughtful.

Eric had expected Calleigh to pull away from him, embarrassed as things became focused in the sharp light of day. Instead, she slid slowly down the bed a couple inches and gently kissed his lips. Her sweet taste assaulted Eric's senses, and he fought the urge to deepen the kiss and forget that Jake Berkeley had just called while he lay naked in bed with the man's girlfriend.

Good plan, in theory. He couldn't run from this forever, though, and he knew it. Agonizing as it was, Eric pulled back from Calleigh's embrace. He didn't retreat too far, however, until Calleigh stopped him firmly in his tracks.

"Don't," Cal said softly, her eyes pleading with him not to ruin this. They both had the day off; what if… But, no, Eric thought. No.

The infinite sadness that was often their companion finally trickled into the quiet of the room, inflating the silence to daunting proportions as Eric stared helplessly into Calleigh's teary green eyes. He knew his were just as damp, though nary a tear escaped from either of them.

"Calleigh, we can't do this," he said, broken. Despite his words, his hands seemed to have a mind of their own, pulling her toward him possessively. Eric's composure was quickly crumbling under the burn of Calleigh's eyes, under the weight of the world that pressed in on them from all sides. With a deep sigh, the olive-skinned man buried his face into the silky lines of his partner's neck, placing a small, resigned kiss to the base of her throat. He breathed her in, deeply, as if he could bottle up the way she smelled and carry it with him after today.

"We can't do this," he repeated against her skin in a strained whisper.

Cal bit back the dry sob forming in her throat. She knew Eric was right, but she wasn't ready to let go of him yet. She just held him, her hands running up and down his body. She could feel the uneven rhythm of his breathing. Calleigh knew last night that this moment would come. She knew it couldn't last, and that at some point she would have to say goodbye to her best friend. Goodbye, because their relationship was forever changed.

That was the knowledge that drove every delectable kiss, every tantalizing thrust the night before: it was all or nothing for Eric and Calleigh. And since they couldn't have it all—they couldn't be best friends and co-workers and lovers at the same time—they must settle for nothing. Well, they would still be co-workers. But the joy of coming to work to see your best friend… what was left for them if they couldn't even have that?

A thought formed deep in the recesses of Calleigh's consciousness, growing and growing until she couldn't ignore it anymore. Mind occupied, she pressed a distracted kiss to Eric's forehead and rolled him slightly to the side so that she could sit up.

Eric's hands dropped from her frame, and his heart dropped, too, because Calleigh was leaving him. He thought he was strong enough to handle this, but right now, as he watched Calleigh draw away from him and pull the sheet up to cover her bare chest, he wasn't so sure.

But wait.

Something wasn't right. Calleigh hadn't left the bed at all. Instead, she'd just moved to sit Indian-style in the middle of the mattress. Her knee still brushed against Eric's under the covers, and she made no effort to terminate the contact with his skin.

Delko narrowed his eyes as he studied the woman now facing away from him, confusion building in him as he realized she had no intentions of leaving his bed. Before, Eric thought she was covering herself with the sheets in embarrassment. Upon closer examination, he noted the action was automatic for her. Modesty was innate for her. But Eric also noticed that Calleigh left her back completely exposed to his view, and when she reached slightly behind her to link their hands, she never fixed the sheet which slipped to reveal half her left breast to him.

Cal sat contemplatively at Eric's knee, softly caressing the back of his hand with her thumb. She needed a little space to process the thought which had just steamrolled over her—a little space, but not too much. Her instincts seemed all wrong with this man. The fire of Eric's eyes along her back didn't have Calleigh running for cover. She actually relished the attention. And when she should be rushing to extricate herself from his arms, from his bed, all she really wanted to do was stay forever.

Should. Who came up with that effing concept, anyway? Who gets to decide what people _should_ do? Calleigh _should _be a good daughter to a father who emotionally abused her all her life. The expert CSI _should_ love her job come hell or high water. She _should_ find friends of her own instead of borrowing someone else's.

Cal _should_ feel guilty for making love with her best friend all night long, and she _should _be running back to Jake right now. Yeah, she should.

But she didn't. She wasn't.

Calleigh gasped as she finally admitted to herself what she'd been denying all night. What she'd denied for months. The only shame she ever felt was the shame of pretending to love Jake Berkeley. Not once in the last four months had Calleigh felt guilty for loving Eric. Not _once_ last night had she felt the burn of regret for letting him love her. No, she didn't feel guilty. And no, she wasn't running back to Jake, either.

Whoever had decided what Calleigh Duquesne should or shouldn't do could go straight to hell.

On fire with a new-found excitement and resolve, Calleigh whipped around to face her best friend. In the process, she carelessly neglected the all-important sheet. Unabashedly naked and with a brilliant grin gracing her features, Calleigh climbed back to the head of the bed and settled herself confidently in Eric's embrace. She arranged the down comforter around them once more, tangled her legs in his, and held out her hand for Eric's cell phone.

"Cal?" Eric was completely baffled by this woman's behavior. She lay across his chest staring up at him with a blissful smile. Their naked bodies merged effortlessly together under the warm covers of Eric's bed. And, as intelligent as Eric liked to think he was, he could not understand how that was possible. Could it be possible?

Calleigh sensed Eric's trepidation, and she placed a lingering, deliberate kiss to his toned chest. Her hands rubbed soothingly along his sides. When their eyes made contact, he realized that her look was bordering on...impudence, maybe?

"Cal?" Eric queried again, growing a little concerned.

His friend-turned-lover simply shook her head and offered him a small, bubbly laugh. "Eric, give me your phone. Don't argue," she added in mock-seriousness as Eric opened his mouth to object. "Just do it."

"Fine," he said, still baffled but willing to cooperate. He handed her his cell and waited for her next move.

Calleigh's playful air disappeared as she hit redial, but she sent Eric a reassuring smile that told him not to worry. Strangely, Eric _wasn't_ worried. A little lost, but not worried. Something in the way Calleigh touched him, the way she looked at him…infant hope took root in his soul. Infant and fragile and completely undeserved, but hope nonetheless.

His eyes flashed to Calleigh's when she addressed the person who had apparently answered her call on the first ring. "Jake! Hey," she said. Eric detected the slight hesitancy in her voice when she spoke to her boyfriend, and he refused to let himself interpret its meaning.

"Calleigh, what the hell is going on?"

Calleigh's irritation reared up in high fashion, indignant that his first question was uttered in anger and definitely not in concern for her well-being. If there had been _any_ question in her mind before, Jake Berkeley had just unknowingly sealed his fate

Cal reined in her emotion, knowing that she still needed to keep a level head. The rebel deep inside her cheered at the fact that she was currently talking to her boyfriend on the phone while she was lying naked in Eric Delko's strong arms. _Happy_ and naked in Eric's arms, and not swatting away the fingers that were drawing absent, loving designs on her hip.

"I'm sorry, Jake. My phone is on vibrate, and I completely forgot about this morning."

"How could you forget, Cal? We've been talking about it all week!"

Calleigh fought her urge to argue and lost miserably. "_You_ were talking about it all week, Jake. I've had a lot on my mind, but you never noticed. I'm sorry for the trouble, ok?"

Jake stopped short at Calleigh's words. Maybe she was right—she _had_ seemed a little preoccupied this week. Now that he thought about it, the detective realized Calleigh had worked three major cases and two drive-bys in the last five days. No wonder she was distracted.

"You know what, babe? You're right. You've had a ton on your plate," Jake apologized smoothly. "I should have recognized it. But that's the perfect reason for our getaway. Just throw some stuff together and we can still leave within the hour. Clothing is optional," he joked huskily, "so that shouldn't be a problem."

Jake thought he was being funny, and normally, Calleigh might have flirted back. Under the current circumstances, his words only caused her stomach to turn a bit. Nothing he could ever say to her would rival the love and devotion dripping in every word Cal received from the man tangled around her.

With that thought, Calleigh pressed on. "Jake," she said quietly. "I'm not going."

What did she mean, she wasn't going? "What?"

"I'm not going, Jake."

Her boyfriend furrowed his brow, and she could hear it in his voice. "Calleigh, are you still pissed at me from last night? Because that was just me being dumb."

Calleigh heard his sincerity and knew Jake meant it. He knew he was being an idiot, and he was sorry. "I'm not still mad at you," the woman explained. "But…listen, can we go for dinner tonight?"

Go for dinner tonight? That was something she said to a long-lost acquaintance when they met on the street. She was acting like she wasn't going to be with him all day, which was absurd, because they had spent every weekend together for the last three months.

Something about this situation wasn't quite right. "Cal, what is going on?" His question was more concerned now and less accusatory, but Calleigh still picked up on his slight insinuation.

"I don't want to talk about this now, okay?" she said as gently as she could.

"What, because Delko's there? Go outside."

Delko was there, more than Jake knew. Calleigh didn't care if Eric heard this conversation. Actually, it would save her the trouble of recounting the whole story later. But she wasn't the type of woman to dump a man over the phone.

"That's not the issue, Jake. I just don't want to have this conversation like this."

Seconds ticked by as understanding dawned on Detective Jake Berkeley. "You're not at Burwell's, are you."

It wasn't a question. Calleigh's eyes grew wide as saucers and she glanced up at Eric, a little afraid of the menacing tone in Jake's voice. Eric saw the slight fear in her eyes, and he hugged her closer, squeezing her hip in support. He couldn't hear Jake's side of the conversation, only mumbled and muted phrases, but things obviously just took a turn for the worse.

Cal didn't answer. Eric lying to Berkeley and her lying to him were two different things. She'd never intended to tell Jake about this time with Eric, not even after her decision that 'one night' would now be 'every night.' But she couldn't lie to him about it either. Luckily, she didn't have to; her silence said it all.

On the other end of the phone, Jake's heart had just broken into a million pieces. He'd lost her.

For a split second, Jake drowned in sadness. He'd actually started planning a future with this woman. He was happy and settled for the first time since he left home at eighteen, and Calleigh was the major reason for that.

He knew better. It was his _job_ to know better, for Christ's sake. The way she lit up when Delko walked into the room. The looks that passed between them. Her seemingly unfounded anger whenever Jake mentioned him in any other context than a current investigation. Just _mentioned _him—like his name was off-limits or something. Like Jake tainted it somehow.

The ache in his stomach for this woman he'd loved turned to spite. If Jake knew that Calleigh was in love with her best friend, _she_ sure as hell did. She'd known all along. Jake suddenly saw their entire relationship in a new light, and he realized that he hadn't lost Calleigh. She wasn't his to lose.

Ironically, he'd known that, too. So had the entire lab, and probably the entire Miami-Dade Police Department. Suddenly, Berkeley wasn't just angry. He was livid. Delko and Calleigh had made a mockery of him, and he'd let them do it.

"What the _fuck_, Calleigh?" Jake spat into the receiver. "What… was this just some kind of joke to you?"

This time Eric could clearly hear Berkeley's words, and he tugged Cal even closer and brushed a kiss against her hair. Calleigh tucked her head under Eric's chin and shut her eyes against Jake's rage. Her entire body trembled in regret for hurting this man.

"No," she said quietly. What could she do? It's not like she was going to deny her actions, and she certainly couldn't deny him the right to be angry.

"No. No! That's all you have to say, is no," Jake barked into the phone, pacing in front of his car parked across the street from Calleigh's house.

"Jake, I am so sorry. You never deserved this from me. I never meant—"

"Don't you dare say that you never meant for this to happen, Calleigh, because that's a load of shit."

Calleigh jolted up in the bed, and Eric shot up beside her, concern evident on his face. "What is that supposed to mean?" she asked Jake pointedly. "You think I planned all this?"

"Why not?" came the strained reply. Jake's voice was rising in volume and octave and he finally gave up trying to restrain his emotion. "I knew, didn't I? I knew that you had feelings for him. Why should I have assumed you weren't fucking him the whole time?"

The blonde's face flamed in protest. How could he think that? She paused as the full import of Jake's words struck her. '_I knew, didn't I?'_ He couldn't place all this on her. Yeah, she made a mistake. A monumental mistake, and not just last night. She chose to start a relationship with a man she didn't love because everything and everyone told her she _couldn't_ be with the one man she'd learned to love more than life itself. She chose to stay in that relationship, even when every last fiber of her being told her it was wrong.

But Jake was responsible, too, and Calleigh wouldn't let him walk all over her anymore. She was a strong, intelligent, independent woman, and for some goddamned reason she'd let Jake Berkeley barge into her life and take that from her. Right now—right now Calleigh sat next to a man who _loved_ those things about her, he didn't fear them. That's the kind of man she deserved. That's the way she deserved to be treated.

"Stop right there, Berkeley," Calleigh replied heatedly into the phone. "One, don't you ever speak to me like that again. Two, if you knew I was in love with someone else, you are _just_ as guilty for pressuring me into a relationship as I was for entering one. I could have said no to you, but you never gave me the chance."

And Calleigh knew that as truth. If Berkeley had slowed down for two seconds, she probably wouldn't have had the courage to run off and admit her feelings to Eric, but she might have had time to think twice about the precarious line she was walking with the devil-may-care detective.

Jake stood in disbelief. "You're actually going to blame _me_ because _you _cheated?"

"No," Calleigh sighed. "What I did wasn't fair to you. But, Jake, you bulldozed me into a corner and then expected me to find my way out. You pushed and pushed, knowing that I loved someone else."

"So I brought this on myself, then?" he bit sarcastically. "And now I should just suck it up and move on, like the last four months never happened?"

God, this is why Calleigh wanted to do this in person. "Of course not. I take full responsibility for my actions. But I refuse to let you place all the blame on me."

"You are not some weak, spineless creature, Cal! You could have stopped me, you could have said no!" Jake yelled at her through the speaker.

"No, I couldn't!" Calleigh cried, finally losing control and yelling right back at him. Eric watched the dam break in the woman sitting beside him, and he wanted nothing more than for all of this to go away. He reminded himself that _he_ was the one who threw all caution to the wind last night. He accepted the consequences, and now he had to deal with them. It didn't seem fair, though, that Calleigh was bearing the brunt of the assault.

Eric didn't want to hear all about Calleigh's relationship with Jake, and he also figured she could use some space to handle this situation. With a long kiss to Cal's temple and a squeeze of his hand on her thigh beneath the covers, Eric flipped back the comforter and rotated his body to place his feet on the floor.

A small, entreating hand appeared on his shoulder. Eric turned to peer at Calleigh and his heart stopped at the look on her face. Without hesitation he grabbed Cal's hand and pulled her off the bed with him, into a fierce hug. Utterly exposed and not giving a damn, they simply stood there and held on tightly.

Calleigh became faintly aware of the cell phone hanging limply in her hand and the harsh voice blaring over the line. Numbly, she brought the phone to her ear. "I'm sorry Jake. I have to go." She clapped the phone shut and threw it to the nightstand behind Eric before losing herself in her lover's embrace.

Eric and Calleigh stayed silent for what seemed like hours, but were really only minutes. Eventually, Eric loosened his hold on Calleigh just enough to run his fingers up and down her spine. He felt hot tears stinging against his skin.

"I wasn't leaving, baby," he whispered.

Calleigh nodded into his neck. She knew he probably just wanted to give her some space, but she'd panicked. She was more than a little embarrassed at how much she needed him, more than a little surprised. And damn him, he always knew exactly what she was thinking.

"It's okay to need me, Cal. I _want_ you to need me." Eric felt the last weight fall from his chest as he finally said the words he'd longed to say to Calleigh for over a year. His body buzzed and his head was dizzy with all the things he wanted to say to her. The things she'd already said…

Calleigh felt Eric chuckle deeply, and she pulled back to meet his eyes in question. The utter joy she found in his gaze took her breath away, and her question died on gaping lips. The man didn't leave her curious for long.

Glancing playfully up at the ceiling as if he was trying to recall something, Eric recounted Calleigh's earlier words. "Knowing that I was in love with someone else…" The twinkle in her best friend's eye took on a dangerous glint as their gazes met. "Cal, who in the world could you be talking about?"

Eric knew the answer, but he wanted to hear the words from Calleigh. "Oh, I don't know," the woman in his arms sighed in response, drawing herself further into his embrace. "Just this guy I know. You'd like him a lot," she said with a slightly evil grin.

Eric huffed in true frustration, though his smile never dimmed a notch. He decided to play along. "Oh, would I?"

Calleigh smiled sweetly and nodded. "Yeah, you two have a lot in common," she said, ducking under his chin and tilting her head to nip at his Adam's apple.

With Calleigh naked in his arms and trailing her wet lips along his neck, Eric struggled to maintain a single coherent thought in his brain. "Yeah," he managed to murmur huskily, cravenly.

Cal missed nothing, and the drop in Eric's voice told her just how easily she could turn him to putty. "Mhmm," she mumbled against his skin. She moved to kiss his jaw, then the corner of his mouth. "See, he's my best friend, he's incredibly sexy," Calleigh smiled against Eric's lips and met his fiery brown eyes with her own, "and I am hopelessly, desperately in love with him."

The petite blonde had barely uttered the words when she found herself crushed against Eric's chest and flying through the air. Two bodies hit Eric's bed with a resounding 'thud' that catapulted them both into fits of laughter.

The laughter choked to an abrupt halt as Eric's lips descended on Calleigh's. He poured every last drop of himself into that kiss: seven years of friendship, seven years of devotion in one form or another, all the pain and disappointment they'd faced and triumphed together, every dream and wish and desire he held for their future. He gave her everything he had, everything he was. Slowly, the day disappeared just as the night had done before, falling victim to the cosmic release of long-shackled love and lust.


End file.
